from Part II - Discovery of the CMB and current cosmological orthodoxy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2024
In this chapter, we argue that if we are blinded by the constant stream of astrophysical and cosmological observations, we may forget that cosmology is the youngest of all the physical sciences. The 1965 discovery of the CMB radiation by Penzias and Wilson moved cosmology to the territory of firmly observational science from the domain of exclusively mathematical modeling, and the 1977 measurements of CMB’s anisotropies with detectors mounted on US spy aircraft opened its Big Science phase. A number of measurements of the CMB spectral shape by detectors mounted on rockets and balloons following the 1965 discovery led to fluctuating agreement with the values of the black body radiation spectrum. In particular, 1978–1979 measurements exhibited discrepancies that gave new impetus to the alternative explanations of the radiation. A series of satellite measurements since the early 1990s, with equipment similar to previous experiments but without atmospheric disturbances, led to the final phase of the convergence to the Hot Big Bang model.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.